not the sort of irish republicans i like....

Those of you who do not regularly follow WI politics may appreciate this spectacle - the speaker of the WI assembly, Jeff Fitzgerald, and the majority leader of the WI senate, Scott Fitzgerald, are brothers, both Republicans. They are pictured above. The shorter one is called "Big Fitz" and the taller one is called "Little Fitz." Jeff (Little Fitz, the younger brother on the left above) appears that dimwitted in all of his photos, but this is to be expected, as he used to be a commodities trader on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, which is a job for people whose parents encouraged them to think that they are much brighter than they actually are.

Their father, Stephen Fitzgerald, pictured above, was recently appointed to run the WI state highway patrol, as an apparent wink, wink, nod, nod ain't it going to be nice to work together present Gov. Walker gave to Big & Little Fitz..

Today, Democrats in the WI Senate have boycotted the vote which would end collective bargaining rights for those unions who opposed the Republican governor in the last election. Because 20 senators of the 33-member house are needed to be present to pass a fiscal bill, 19 Republicans will not be enough to pass the bill without a Democrat present (and most reports have said that only 17 Republicans showed up today). What have the Fitzgerald brothers decided to do? Call dad and have him order state highway patrolmen to go get the Democratic Senators and bring them in for a vote.

But as it turns out all 14 Democratic state senators are reported to be out of state.

The scuttlebutt is that the U.S. Marshals will be called next. Perhaps the Fitzgeralds have a cousin in federal law enforcement.

What's fits the whole bill here is that the whole thing seems to be a scam. There are a number of reports which assert that the WI budget crisis is nothing like what Walker suggests. Consider this, for instance:

I just got back from the protest at the capitol building a little while ago. What I heard there from several people is that the state troopers that Walker tried to send after the Democratic senators refused to go after them.

A step better then than a college drop out turned incompetent governor who is paid 137k a year and now has his third taxpayer funded pension coming to him - all for repeating tired Tea Bagger cliches and almost sneaking sweet no-bid deals for his Koch masters into budget bills.